Why Vitamin A is one of your Most Important Emergency Supplies

I hope you don't forget when your mother used to advise you to eat your carrots to make sure you can see properly. The main reason was due to vitamin A. Now as you'll notice, her generous advice was a little misguided, but the concept still applies. Without Vitamin A, you will have a a lot harder time surviving a disaster.

Why vitamin A is one of your most important emergency supplies

Using mom's advice, Vitamin A is important for maintaining eye-sight. The scientific term for Vitamin A is retinol, that is associated with retina, the layer at the back of your eye responsible for letting you see. Without retinol, your retina can't function effectively. This actually starts to be noticed in the form of night blindness, but eventually can lead to blindness.

It's especially necessary for the children under the age of five, who require it for their developing bodies. Vitamin A deficit affects 1/3rd of kids worldwide and results in approximately 670,000 deaths and the blindness of up to 500,000 more. If you are planning to live with children, it is definitely essential that vitamin A is among your emergency supplies.

In addition to vision, Vitamin A plays several functions in the body. It performs a major part in cellular health, which has an effect on immune function, bone metabolism, and also the creation of blood cells. The fact that it was one of the primary vitamins found is a testament to the visible impact on overall health.

The variety of forms, and sources

Prepare yourself, this part is going to include some biochemistry. As we discussed earlier, the natural form of Vitamin A is retinol, that is basically an alcohol. This is not a reliable form found in nature so the form you would probably take in originates from a plant or animal source. The primary animal source is retinyl palmate, present in fatty tissues and the major form found in plants is among four types of carotene (derived from carrots, get it?).

The problem with carotene is it is not easily converted into retinol within the body. Vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin, meaning it is stored in fat. The fatty retinyl palmate is a lot closer to retinol than the carotenes one can find in plants. Without fats, the absorption of carotenes will be as little as 1 to 12, below 10%!

The ideal way to supplement vitamin A, in the field as well as at home

Bearing this in mind, there is a very easy method to supplement Vitamin A both at home and in survival situations. Additionally it is, in my humble opinion, quite a delicious choice. The perfect source of Vitamin A available to a lot of people is eating liver.

Since Vitamin A is fat soluble, there is the ability for the body to store it in the fat and use it as required. Because of this, it doesn't need to be taken every day. While there is a suggested regular allowance of 3,000IU, this can quickly be converted into a weekly allowance of 20,000IU. This is equal to around 300 grams of liver weekly, or half a pound. I am basing these numbers from beef liver however, there is Vitamin A is the liver of any animal you could think of; including fish (think cod liver oil).

This gels perfectly with a bugout strategy of surviving in the wild. Vitamin A supplementation is difficult from a pantry survival viewpoint because lots of the plant sources just are not absorbed as effectively as animal sources. As you understand by now, all nutrients were not created equal. Thus if you intend on staying in one place, be sure you keep hunting in mind, until you intend on being a post-collapse Ray Charles.